Nigel Farage has urged British expatriates in Spain to pull their money out of
the country’s banks.

The UK Independence Party leader said that the European Union had “crossed a line” by trying to extract funds from savers under the terms of the abandoned Cypriot bail-out.

Mr Farage said: “Even I didn’t think that they would stoop to actually stealing money from people’s bank accounts.

“There is going to be a big flight of money and that flight of money won’t just be from Cyprus, it will be from the other eurozone countries, too. There are 750,000 British people who own properties, or who live, many of them in retirement, down in Spain.

“Now that we see the EU are prepared to resort to anything to keep alive their failing euro project, our advice to expats living down in the Mediterranean must be, 'Get your money out of there while you’ve still got a chance’.”

Mr Farage urged George Osborne, the Chancellor, to rule out any such levy on British savers.

He admitted that some of the party’s new voters were eager to “stick two fingers up to the establishment”. But he added that a vote for Ukip is “far more powerful than a protest vote”.

Mr Farage insisted his party could win votes from across the political spectrum as their success in Eastleigh had been about more than protest votes. He added there has been a "wholesale rejection of the career political class".